Wednesday, MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski reacted to President Donald Trump wishing alleged sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell “well” after he was asked about her case during a news briefing at the White House the day before.
“I haven’t really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly,” Trump said at the briefing which was largely about the coronavirus pandemic.
Brzezinski called the comment from the president “extremely uncomfortable” given Trump’s history with Jeffrey Epstein.
“He wishes her well,” Brzezinski stated after playing the clip of Trump offering Maxwell his well wishes. “Prosecutors say Maxwell played a critical role in helping Epstein identify, befriend, and groom minor victims for abuse — girls, young girls, children. She has denied the allegations and she has pleaded not guilty. You know what, I just want that to sit there for a while. The president at his coronavirus briefing had no doctors, but he wished Ghislaine Maxwell well.”
“I’m extremely uncomfortable with what I just heard, and I think everybody should be,” she added. “And the questions in this case need to be asked and asked and asked until they are answered. And I just think it’s very strange that the president would make a comment like that in a case like this.”
Brzezinski later said she fears Americans are going to “allow the shock” of Trump’s comments and actions “to wear off.”
“I let it sit a little bit after we played that because we have got to stop allowing this shock to wash away on every norm that this president breaks, whether it’s shaking down a foreign government for dirt on a political rival, or wishing an accused sex offender whose longtime boyfriend died in jail with thousands of secrets, with enough known about this case to know that there’s something there. There’s no way that comment can be normalized. It was not OK. And time and time again, he breaks through the stop signs that this country put up to create a democracy, to create a society where people are safe and free and trying to get to a place where people are treated equally, and he’s pulling us back in time. He’s pulling us toward the dark side. And yes, this is my opinion speaking here, but I fear that we allow the shock to wear off every time, and we don’t stop and think and do,” she concluded.
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
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